Thursday, June 16, 2011

Today is Wednesday which means that I'm leaving for Shenzhen in FOUR DAYS. It seems surreal that, after wrapping up my first year in the MURP program a few days ago, I'll be in China so soon. Ah...China, there are so many amazingly different and wondrous things to be excited about. Working, living, and immersing myself in Chinese culture is important, but mostly I'm excited for all the crazy stuff I'm going to get to eat. Specifically spicy food, and lots of it. As a culinary conquistador, I look forward to trying exotic dishes full of foreign ingredients, and I plan to impress my hosts with a fearless apetite for all things high on the Scoville scale.

But I digress...there are other important things to discuss, like how awesome Chinese visas look in your passport:

Check out the detail work on this thing; it's a full page, and even has an image of the Great Wall on it. It's totally (almost) worth the $150 dollars the Chinese government charged me, and when this passport expires I'll probably have it framed.

I also wanted to share with you the amazing gifts I scored at the Made in Oregon Store. For all future interns I have to stress that, aside from things being a bit pricey, the Made in Oregon Store is probably the best place to get cool little Oregon-themed gifts for your co-workers in China. I opted for some classic Portland/Oregon bumper stickers and some chocolate bars featuring famous sites from around the state; needless to say I got strange looks from the clerks for this purchase.

That's about it for now, I have a lot more stuff to take care of before the big departure on Sunday. One thing I should mention is that, in China, a lot of internet content is censored. It is very possible that we might be unable to post while there, but we should sporadically find ways to make it work. We will keep you updated and hopefully everything goes smoothly.